Tag Archives: trees at risk in Milton Keynes

At last night’s Cabinet meeting MK Councillor Rob Middleton (Lab.) told the public gallery “I can be clear; I will not be forcing another Hub on CMK!”

This is very good news for thousands of people who use Saxon Gate daily, and would certainly feel the difference if the surrounding access routes and leafy boulevards were lost, as at the Hub.

Xplain’s mock up of Hub-scale development on Saxon Gate

Cllr Middleton said “It’s important to listen, and I recognise the strength of feeling and commitment from the public responses to the consultation.” Hence, he is now “minded to remove” the option to build over the classic CMK infrastructure later this month, when the official guidance to developers is due to be finalised.

Predictably, this has been the most controversial option, as it involves demolishing Saxon Court and replacing it with a much wider, taller building that would obliterate most of the surrounding trees, public space and access routes.

Naturally, people have drawn comparisons between the ‘Hub’ development and the prospect of an equally overbearing presence on Saxon Gate. But Councillor Middleton said it had been right for the Council to offer a range of options as part of the consultation process.

Saxon Court – part of MK’s modern heritage. (c) Iqbal Alaam

Councillor John Bint (Con.), welcomed Cllr Middleton’s announcement and said the Development Control Committee had also expressed concerns with the draft Development Brief.

There was also a positive signal on MK’s distinctive heritage. After Xplain and others wrote in, explaining the architectural significance of Saxon Court, which was carefully designed to mark the gateway to Central Milton Keynes, Council officers will now look into its heritage value. Hopefully they will revise their opinion that it is simply “a 1970’s office building” which “lacks any presence”.

It’s still early days, but for now, this is positive news for citizens who appreciate that MK is ‘Different by Design’.

Despite a rise in traffic jams, accidents and parking issues around the ‘Hub’ development in Central Milton Keynes, and the £2.1m cost of altering highways*, MK Council (MKC) is gearing up for a similar project at Saxon Gate.

Saxon Court (right) in classic CMK layout

Saxon Gate is one of the busiest gateways to CMK. Here, opposite Debenhams, the Council owns Saxon Court; a subtle piece of Modernist architecture it now wishes to sell. But instead of promoting the most sustainable option (to refurbish the heritage building and develop the empty site at the back) the Council’s Draft Development Brief firmly steers would-be investors to option 3.

‘Son of Hub’ for Saxon Gate?

This is to demolish Saxon Court and build a huge new development right up to the grid road, wiping out most of the side streets. If these tributaries of the grid road network disappear, they take with them:

direct access to and from the grid road (Saxon Gate)

400 public parking spaces

dedicated footpaths and cycle routes

around 140 mature trees.

Is CMK destined for another Soviet-style project, looming over bleak, deforested boulevards? Will frustrated drivers stop on grid roads to drop off a parcel or pick up a passenger, jamming up traffic and causing accidents?

Daily jams at The Hub

Unless Council leaders persist in this corporate amnesia there is still time to change the development brief.

Last night the leader of MK Council defended a controversial list of green open spaces which senior planners have drawn up as part of the massive housing targets for Plan MK. Curiously, nobody seemed to know about the list, apart from an inner circle of people at MKC.

Xplain has discovered that MK Council chiefs have drawn up a list of 117 sites for possible infill housing ranging from gardens for sheltered housing schemes in Springfield to children’s play areas in Wavendon Gate, New Bradwell, Wolverton, Woolstones etc. Even the one great civic square in MK – Station Square in Central Milton Keynes – is back on the list (‘suitable’ for 248 dwellings!).

Remarkably, the secretive “Urban Capacity Study” repeats exactly the same mistakes as last year’s ‘Parks for Cash’ fiasco when public outrage forced Council bosses to withdraw a long list of precious open spaces put forward for possible infill housing.

Yet again it seems that the Council has failed to be open, inclusive and transparent about the way it has drawn up such an important list.

Yet again they have put forward sites which are totally unsuitable for development while trying to claim they pass the initial test of ‘good urban planning’.

With planning permission already granted for 23,000 new homes in Milton Keynes, and Plan MK looking to push the city boundaries out beyond the M1, it begs the question – why are they trying to squeeze in 3,500 more homes by returning to sites which were officially withdrawn from this threat in 2016? Apparently, “Sites identified through the Urban Capacity Study help to reduce the number of dwellings that need to be allocated on greenfield sites in the open countryside.” So that’s alright then!

Have MKC leaders forgotten last year’s warnings – shouted from the public gallery – that this sort of short-sighted ‘planning’ would create “back to back housing – the slums of the future”?

Some of the 117 sites are genuine ‘brownfield’ sites, but having checked the list, Xplain reckons that many are not. Some will even need homes and offices to be demolished to gain access. It is as if officers have scoured the maps of MK, with little knowledge of what is on the ground, got out their crayons and changed green to brown.

Franklins Croft, Wolverton

If you are worried about the future of open spaces in MK please follow our blog, check the Urban Capacity Study and contact your ward councillors.

“I feel betrayed and beleaguered in continually having to defend our rights to keep and enjoy the open spaces within my locality,” says Sylvia from Stantonbury. “Is it inefficiency on the part of MKC’s planning department – the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing? Or deliberate deceit, with determination to get hold of these spaces somehow, some day, some way?”

While the fresh green landscape of Milton Keynes is full of hope and life there is one part of the city centre which is anything but! Here, at ‘the John Lewis end’ of the Grade ll-listed Shopping Building, almost all the trees and shrubs have been cut down to make way for a controversial multi-storey car park.

7 March 2017. Places for People are facing serious questions over the way dozens of mature trees were cut down in Milton Keynes today without warning, and without planning permission.

Budding horse chestnuts – axed!

Remarkably, this was just hours after their spokesmen had assured residents at a parish council meeting that they would conduct a proper tree survey as part of upcoming plans for a new housing development. The site, next to Broughton Manor School, has had outline planning approval for some years which is due to expire. PFP are looking to renew it and to file detailed plans thereafter.

Ward councillor Catriona Morris told Xplain that she has asked MK Council enforcement officers to investigate. “It’s the most extraordinary sight,” she says, “The whole field is covered in dead trees. I don’t know if any had tree protection orders on them or not but it’s too late to save them now!”

Paul, a nearby resident, says “During the presentation by the architects for PFP I specifically asked about the established trees and was told that they were currently being assessed and the reports had not yet been completed to decide on their future. Roll on 16 hours and I come home to find that all of the trees have already been cleared by a large JCB!”

Scene of devastation at Broughton Manor Farm

Cutting down perfectly good trees that could have added to the quality of life for new and existing residents, as well as wildlife, is not only a travesty of planning but also goes against the original ethos of Milton Keynes – the City of Trees.

Who gave the orders to chop them down and why? Places for People have got some explaining to do.

Despite public objections due to visual impact, noise and damage to the beautiful, sensitive setting of Willen Hospice and Lake, plans to build a concrete works and rock/aggregate sorting plant have been approved by MK Council’s planning committee (22 March 2016).

This 50ft high shed – just 100m from Willen Lake

Several councillors were unhappy but felt it was better to approve the plans, and attach conditions about landscaping, noise monitoring etc, rather than let the applicant take it to appeal. In that case, a planning inspector might overturn any refusal and not impose so many conditions.

The applicant, Mick George Ltd, made a great show of how it trains its HGV drivers to drive safely and supports local charities but naturally failed to mention it was heavily fined last year for polluting pristine brooks in Peterborough.